14: At All Costs
by cathrl
Summary: Tiny's not feeling too good, but hey, it's just a quick bit of escort duty...
1. Chapter 1

With many thanks to the denizens of fanfic_med, especially Robyn S, for helping me with the more technical aspects of this story.

You should have seen some of the suggestions I didn't use.

"Adult"? No, but occasionally medically accurate.

* * *

 **At All Costs**

"The colonists of New Riga have historically been neutral," Anderson said, as images of farms and fishing boats scrolled past on the screen behind him. "Now, however, it seems that Spectra is no longer prepared to ignore the potential strategic location of their planet."

"Not seeing how this involves us," Jason muttered.

Tiny shifted uncomfortably in his seat, silently agreeing. His strained stomach muscle wasn't healing nearly as fast as it should. He didn't want to go on a mission. He wanted to go and sleep. Probably after getting his implant retuned to do its job properly.

"Evacuation ships are on their way," Anderson continued. "So, we believe, is the Spectran invasion force. They can and will destroy the unarmed evacuation ships with very little difficulty. Or worse."

"Worse?" asked Keyop.

"Slavery." Princess raised appealing green eyes, a trick which worked on most men. Which she knew full well. "We have to help them, Chief."

Tiny had seen what Spectra did to their captive races. He looked again at the pictures. Kids playing by a lake.

He could fly the Phoenix with a pulled muscle.

.

He still hung back with Mark, grateful for the excuse to walk, as the other three sprinted for the elevator.

"Commander, there's something you need to know. I'm not a hundred percent right now."

"Go on."

"I tweaked a stomach muscle a couple of days ago. Aggravated it yesterday sparring with Keyop. I'm fit to fly. Probably not to go off-ship."

Mark grimaced. "Then that makes two of us. I'd still rather have you at the helm and it looks like this will be escort duty only. Your call."

"I'll be fine." He didn't feel that bad now. Sore and short on sleep, mostly. Last night he'd felt dreadful. No better this morning. Then he'd stood up incautiously and, after an initial sensation of being stabbed, he'd finally started to feel a lot better. Kicked the implant into doing its job, maybe. Hopefully this would be a nice quiet sit-down mission. Escort the evacuation ships from planet to jump point; be there, big, blue and scary; and any Spectran mecha captain with half an ounce of sense would keep his distance.

.

"Didn't think I hit you that hard," Keyop quipped as Tiny followed Mark onto the flight deck. It was only half a joke. He looked genuinely worried.

"Nah. Not your fault, kid. I should have told you to go spar with someone else."

"I'm sure Rick would have been happy to put you through your paces," said Jason, getting out of the pilot's seat and heading for his own. "Checks running."

"Thanks." Tiny ignored Keyop's insulted spluttering and Jason's chuckling and sat down cautiously, avoiding putting any strain on his stomach. Man, he was still sore when he tried to use those muscles. Maybe he'd torn something, not just strained it. Not that it made any difference to the treatment, which involved rest, and not implant-powered high speed martial arts. Twit.

As he finished the preflight checks, Mark glanced sideways at him. "I could use the launch practice, if you want to take it easy."

"It's not a problem." His seat was designed that way. Nobody could use muscular strength to sit forward through an orbital boost, so he didn't need to. Arm strength was required. Nothing else.

"If I thought you couldn't do it, you'd be staying home. I'll take her up. I'll expect a full critique after debrief."

 _Oh, good. My favourite: being honest and helpful about how Mark pilots the Phoenix, without completely trashing him._ It was true, though. His commander did need the practice, even more so since he was now the one who stayed behind when G-Force had to go off-ship.

He nodded, reaching forward and flicking off the master control on his board. "Your ship."

 _Now that's one big change in attitude_ , he thought as he relaxed and watched Mark doing his job. His commander had always hated flying the Phoenix. Not a proper plane, he'd always complained, pointing to the lack of glide profile and completely nonstandard aerodynamics. The flying brick: everything controlled by raw power rather than finesse. He'd avoided it to the extent that Jason had been the backup Phoenix pilot and Mark hadn't even cared. These days, he logged almost as many hours in the Phoenix simulator as Tiny did.

He'd improved. A lot. Tiny made mental notes - he knew Mark hadn't been joking about expecting a full critique. Not quite the perfect speed and angle for the water exit, and a couple of times there was, not exactly a hesitation, but what Tiny suspected was Mark's fighter pilot instincts telling him the wrong thing. Just little things to work on.

Tiny swallowed uncomfortably. He really wasn't feeling too good. Had he eaten something dodgy, on top of everything else? Not that he'd felt much like eating for the past couple of days.

"I'll take her," he said as soon as they'd made the transfer to orbit. "Good launch."

"Thanks." Mark passed control back and pulled up what looked like a load of tactical briefing information on his screens, and Tiny ran the next set of standard checks before heading out towards the jump-point.

He'd wanted distraction from the growing nausea, but Keyop attempting to whistle so wasn't it, and Jason joining in was the last straw.

"Will you two shut up?" he snapped. "Some of us are working."

"Some of us can multi-task," was the Swallow's riposte.

"Enough." Mark didn't raise his voice. He'd never needed to. "If anyone's bored, there are plenty of systems tests you can run. Give us some peace and quiet here."

"Sorry," muttered Keyop, and fell silent. He'd got into the habit of whistling largely because it annoyed Rick, Tiny suspected. The rest of them had learned to ignore it. Not Mark, though, and if Mark stamped on it, transit flights going back to peace, quiet and the occasional dreadful joke would be much more to Tiny's taste.

They set up for the jump quietly, calmly, professionally. Tiny never worried about what it was Jason saw in the numbers - the maths involved was way beyond him - but whatever he saw this time, he clearly liked. There was a new confidence in his tone, and as the world went red around them and his controls died, Tiny realised that this was their first jump-flight with Mark back in command.

And, oh man, was he not enjoying it one bit.

.

He had no idea how long the jump lasted. Only, when they finally came out of it, that he was about to humiliate himself utterly.

"Take her," he snapped to Mark. He didn't wait for an answer. He pushed himself out of his seat - which _hurt_ \- and bolted for the back of the flight deck and the bathroom beyond.


	2. Chapter 2

"What the -?" Jason glanced behind him, half-expecting to see Tiny piled up against the back wall. That was way out of character for their pilot.

"Focus," said Mark. "Report." Maybe just a hint of annoyance in the voice.

"Evacuation ships say they're just leaving planetary orbit," said Princess. "They're glad to see us."

"Three more ships, bearing three five two, extreme sensor range," Keyop said. "Spectran."

"Speed? Course?"

"Not sure."

Jason was leaning on the back of the Swallow's chair even before he got Keyop's silent appealing glance requesting help. He wasn't surprised the kid was struggling. He wasn't nearly as sure as Keyop had sounded that there were three of them.

"Course is towards us - I think," he said. "They're almost out of range and the sensor data's noisy as hell. Give us thirty seconds."

"But you're sure they're Spectran?"

Keyop was nodding, and what else could they be? Certainly they were huge. And real numbers were starting to emerge from the noise.

"Yeah. Three Spectran mecha on an intercept course, moving fast."

Mark drummed his fingers on the console. "G-3, get back to the evacuation fleet, tell them to move it. G-2, go see what's keeping Tiny."

.

The bathroom door was pushed to. Not closed; not locked. Jason's cheery "so, you planning to..." died on his lips as he opened it fully. Tiny lay slumped on the floor, helmet alongside him, face greenish-grey and beaded with sweat.

"You look like crap," he said instead. "Want to self-diagnose?"

"Thought I'd tweaked a stomach muscle," Tiny said, no weight behind his voice. "Now I'm thinking appendix."

"Great." Jason knelt alongside him. "Let me -"

Tiny folded both arms protectively across his stomach. "Poke me and I'll scream. I've got all the symptoms you're about to test for."

"Okay." He thought quickly. Paramedic training was a long time ago. "How long has this been going on? How much worse is it now?"

"I..." Tiny looked at the floor. "I felt like absolute crap last night. Then suddenly better this morning. Now it's worse than it's ever been."

 _Oh, no._ All his careful calculations went out of the window. You had twelve hours or so after a ruptured appendix before it was really seriously dangerous rather than just thoroughly miserable. He'd been thinking that Tiny would be mighty uncomfortable, but there was no real risk.

But that set of symptoms pointed to his appendix having ruptured hours earlier. You did feel better for a while, with the pressure relieved. Then your abdominal cavity started to get involved. Peritonitis. That was serious as all hell. He needed to get Tiny back through jump, pumped full of antibiotics, and to a doctor. In that order, since he couldn't go through jump with the drugs in his system. Never mind how long ago it was, paramedic training had never seemed so inadequate.

"Stay there," he told Tiny, though he doubted the other was capable of moving. He headed back to the flight deck at a run.

"We need to abort," he announced as he burst through the door. "Tiny's got a ruptured appendix. Turn her round."

Mark swung round, shock obvious. "What?"

"Abort. Now."

"We can't. He'll have to wait."

"Mark, he can't wait. It takes twelve hours until peritonitis is really serious. He's already had nine of them."

To his horror, Mark's jaw was set. "I said he'll have to wait. We're committed."

"You'll kill him." No point beating about the bush.

And Mark was on his feet, faster than Jason had thought he was capable of yet. He indicated the screen. "G-2, there are five thousand Rigan civilians on those ships, and I just told them that we would stand between them and the Spectran mecha. Five thousand men, women and children. I need you at your post in three minutes. Go do what you can for him."

"But -"

"That's a direct order, G-2."

"Yes, sir!" Jason didn't even try to hide the fury in his voice.

.

Tiny had moved just far enough to be throwing up into the toilet. Jason put a hand on the back of his neck - damp with sweat - hoping it was some comfort. There was, quite literally, nothing more he could do.

"Sorry, Tiny," he said as the other finally stopped heaving. "We're committed. You'll have to hang on."

Tiny said nothing at all. His ragged breathing was enough. Jason pushed his anger far, far down.

"Sickbay, or your flight seat?" The usual option would have been sickbay, but he wondered whether Tiny would want to lie flat.

"Stay here," the other groaned.

"Not an option."

"I'm serious. Moving's not an option."

"But -"

"Who's the medic here?"

Actually, Jason was pretty sure _he_ was the senior medic on the team right now given the state Tiny was in. But Tiny appeared to be coherent, and he did have a lot more medical training, and it was his gut that was on fire.

"Okay," he said. His bracelet pinged - that would be his three minutes up, then. Without checking who it was, he responded, "Two more minutes," and cut the connection.

"We may be in combat very shortly. Let's get you sitting against the wall, at least."

Tiny allowed himself to be half lifted, half dragged the couple of feet to the back wall, and sagged against it like a man already half dead as Jason extended the emergency fastening straps from the wall. One from above each shoulder, crossed over his chest and fastened off tight level with the bottom of his ribs. Not great, but much better than nothing, and not putting any more pressure on his stomach.

"Don't undo them," he said. "Don't. If you puke, you puke."

Tiny forced a weak smile. "I'm too empty to puke."

"I'm serious."

"I know. Go kill Spectrans."

.

Mark was on his feet as Jason went back onto the flight deck. Shoulders back, cape wings flared, chin up. Spectrans had hacked into their comms system again, then. He'd suggested they simply remove the front camera. Anderson hadn't wanted that, of course, but the main reason they'd kept it was that intel said G-Force in uniform scared the Spectran regulars rigid. At that point, Jason was quite happy to help the Spectran command staff psych their own men out.

He did so now, favouring the camera with a paint-stripping Condor glare before heading to his seat without giving the screens up front another glance.

"Those ships are under my protection," Mark was saying in full oration mode. "If you go near them, you won't go home. This is your only warning."

Princess had her right hand flat on her console, their sign that she had retaken control of her systems, and Mark half-turned and slashed the edge of his hand across his throat. _Cut them off_.

Commander Silly Outfit Du Jour disappeared from the screen, replaced initially with grey fuzz, and then a starfield, a planet of the blue and green habitable variety, and four giant ships silhouetted against it. Keyop had superposed some basic sensor information over each of them. Slow-moving behemoths. It would take them an hour or more to reach this position.

Jason activated his sensors, the highly specialised variety which didn't care about ships or missiles but only about the fields and forces which determined where you could and couldn't take a ship into jump-space. As he'd suspected, the only suitable location was a few miles directly behind them. They'd just come out of it.

"No alternative jump-points," he said.

Mark didn't respond. He'd taken Tiny's seat, with its more sophisticated, wider range of flight controls, and now set them on a course for the evacuation ships.

"I strapped Tiny to the bathroom wall," Jason said, more loudly than usual. "He couldn't even get as far as sickbay."

"G-4, tell me the moment those Spectrans do anything."

"Don't you care?"

Mark still didn't look round. "Do your job or get out. G-4?"

The distress was clear in Keyop's voice. "They're heading for the convoy. Accelerating."

Mark swore in Russian, the first indication Jason had seen in a while that he was even human, and the Phoenix accelerated hard. "Call your shots and take them, G-2," he said.

 _Three of them, one of us, and those evacuation ships won't be armed or armoured._ "Understood," Jason said, bringing his targeting systems on line. They needed to hope that Mark's intimidation had worked and each mecha captain was too afraid to go it alone. Jason was an average pilot and a worse tactician, but even he knew that the Phoenix couldn't stop all three mecha getting to the target if they split up.

Mark brought them round on a long looping course, keeping the Phoenix between the mecha and the evacuation ships, and Jason evaluated his targets. That was easy. Two snuggled up close and the third just starting to break away from the formation.

Mr Independent ate two missiles from the Super launcher and exploded in a satisfying fireball, just as Mark hauled them into a tight reversal of course. A selection of what appeared to be flaming plasma streaked past their nose, far too close for comfort.

"What's that?" asked Keyop.

 _Don't know, don't care, don't want to find out._ Jason readied two more missiles. "Going for the leader," he said.

They were close to the lumbering evacuation ships now. Probably close enough for the Spectrans to take a shot, should they get a clear one. Could Rigan civilian tech hold up to Spectran plasma weapons? He didn't want to find that out either. Princess was on the radio, reassuring the Rigan captains, telling them to hold their speed and course. He assumed that was already maximum speed.

The Phoenix lurched as it swung into another attack run, and for a moment Jason had no idea why their flight path wasn't its usual smooth self. 'Tiny's not piloting' and 'Tiny's strapped to the bathroom wall writhing in agony' hit pretty much simultaneously. He had just enough self-control not to launch wildly, to take a breath or five and wait for the sights to steady again. Mark had to be wondering what was keeping him. Mark was enough of a pro to say nothing and carry on setting up shots. Jason didn't miss his second chance. Two down; one to go.

Mark pulled the Phoenix round hard again. No ambiguity at all; a direct course for the third mecha. The Super launcher couldn't reload that fast, but it didn't matter. The mecha turned on its tail in a manoeuvre which defied the laws of physics and fled.

"Status, G-4," Mark snapped.

"No more Spectrans. Evac ships ten minutes from jump."

"Tell them to punch it."

Princess went back to work in calm, fluent Rigan, asking for confirmation that the ships were already at maximum speed, and Jason cleared his throat, hoping he didn't have to go to war with his commander.

"Go check on him. If I call a scramble, I want you back here inside twenty seconds. Otherwise, eight minutes."

 _And then we're going home. No matter what destination you give me._ No discussions. He'd just do it, and face the consequences later.


	3. Chapter 3

Tiny looked worse, something Jason hadn't thought was possible.

"Talk to me," he said.

Tiny just groaned, and Jason peered into his face, wishing this had happened to any other member of G-Force so he wasn't the one making the medical decisions. "You need some fluids in you."

"Jump?"

"We've got five minutes." He knew exactly where the rehydration solution was, though he'd never fed it to anyone else before. Normally he was the one puking to the point of dehydration.

Tiny didn't even reach for the cup when it was passed to him, just closed his eyes and heaved. Jason's stomach tensed in sympathy. _Been there_. Never this bad, though. Ten minutes to jump, give or take. Ten minutes in jump. Forty minutes back to base on the other side. Jason considered again just how bad Tiny looked, just how sunken his cheeks were, and realised he had no choice any more. Their medic needed fluids, now, and that meant an IV. He needed to be in sickbay.

"Any chance you can stand?" he asked.

"Not a hope." That was flat despair, and Jason went to the bracelet.

"G-1, I need your help."

Mark wasn't the ideal candidate for this - he was still, to put it kindly, slow and shaky on his feet, still a mile away even from participating in standard G-Force physical training sessions. But he was the only one of the three on the flight deck who was tall enough to be any use.

He appeared in the doorway within seconds, and promptly went white. Human after all, then.

"We need to get him to sickbay," Jason said. No need to comment on the seriousness. "If I get him up, can you give him a shoulder? Tiny, you're going to have to walk a bit. We're out of other options."

The ten yards felt like a hundred. Jason didn't want to think about how far it must be seeming to Tiny. He could feel the big man flinching with every step, hear the thin, thready gasps which were bordering on whimpering.

He'd seen people in a shedload of pain. Been there himself, a few times. Knew how tough Tiny was. The obvious conclusion was something he didn't want to think about.

They carried Tiny rather than supported him over the raised threshold - at least Jason did. Mark clearly couldn't do much except prevent him falling. His commander had a rigid grip on the doorframe, and a look of worried concentration in his eyes which Jason had learned to interpret over the past few weeks. _I'm at my physical limit_ , that look meant. It didn't matter. He'd done what was needed. Jason lowered Tiny's upper body onto the narrow bunk and lifted his hips and legs to follow, as gently as he could.

"Still with us?" he asked.

He got a groan in response, which was better than he'd expected.

"It's your call when we go to jump," Mark said, heading out. "But I'll need you on the weapons if the Spectrans come back."

Jason didn't answer. He'd put IVs in people, of course. Standard paramedic training. But he'd never done it to anyone who needed it for real.

Or anyone this dehydrated. He couldn't feel any veins in Tiny's arm at all. Neither arm. Not even when he'd stripped off his own gloves and tossed them with Tiny's into the storage bin under the bunk. Not even when he'd used the emergency partial birdstyle deactivator and bared the other's arms to the shoulder. Tourniquet didn't work. Flicking it didn't work. Swearing at it didn't work. Nor did swearing at himself. He didn't have time to mess about with hot towels. Asking someone else to have a try wasn't an option. He didn't know any other tricks apart from fish around with the needle and hope, and that didn't work either.

 _It's got to go in_. He tried again, achieving nothing. Tiny was going to look like a pincushion tomorrow.

Tiny might not be alive to look like a pincushion tomorrow.

Time for the emergency techniques. The ones you didn't practice, but were told about for completeness. The ones that, dammit, part time paramedics who only did the course in the first place so the paperpushers could tick the "there's a qualified backup for this role" box weren't ever supposed to need.

Sterile scalpels were individually packed in the drawer under the bunk. Jason peeled one out of its plastic wrapping, set up to make the cut, and stopped. The way his hands were shaking, he'd either cut Tiny's arm off or miss it entirely. Time for relaxation breathing and a lean on the implant. And another disinfectant wipe of his sweaty hands.

He tried not to think about what he was doing as he inserted the scalpel above where the vein had to be and sliced. Not too long, not too short, and absolutely not too deep. His first attempt still didn't reveal the vein, and he didn't want to poke about in the bottom with the needle. Chris could always sew it up later. He took a deep breath and sliced deeper, and finally there was the vein clearly visible at the bottom of it. Jason dropped the scalpel into the sharps bin, grabbed the needle, and it went straight in first time. He'd practiced what to do from there. Check valve, withdraw the needle leaving the cannula behind, flush the line and connect the saline feed. No decisions required here. The only fluid he could put into Tiny this side of jump was saline, and the only option for someone so dehydrated you had to do a cutdown to get an IV into them was to run it wide open. Which, with their IV pump system, meant lining up the arrow on the dial with the little red dot.

The pump started humming contentedly, and Jason set to strapping his patient down in case they should be thrown around. He really should have done that first. It was fortunate that his patient hadn't woken up enough to flinch while having scalpels stuck in him. That would have made even more of a mess than Jason had made on his own. He needed to think much more clearly. Tiny's life was depending on it.

And his bracelet lit up. Bird Scramble. Mark needed him right now. Jason swore again, and yanked the last three straps into place. He couldn't leave Tiny unrestrained in here.

"I'll be back," he promised. "Hang in there, Tiny."

He didn't get a response.


	4. Chapter 4

"Hold your course, Captain," Princess was saying into the radio, her Rigan polite and formal. "Under no circumstances break off. I repeat, do not change course. We're synchronising our computer systems with yours now. I assure you, our calculations are proceeding well within normal parameters."

"Calculations? Normal parameters?" Jason asked, sitting down.

"Their computer's on the fritz," Mark said from Tiny's seat, "and in close formation like that, only the front ship's got any decent sensor readings. We need you to calculate the jump for them."

"To?"

"On your screen."

That explained why Princess was being coy with the Rigans: multiple minutes from jump, 'within normal parameters' meant 'Jason hasn't even started yet.' His screen was showing an entirely basic jump profile to another Rigan colony world. One which, if he remembered rightly, had a major military installation. Good choice. He gave Princess the thumbs-up.

The main viewscreen, meanwhile, showed an evacuation ship on their port side, rather too close for comfort. No wonder Mark hadn't been interested in chit-chat. Close formation flying in the Phoenix was unlikely to be his favourite pastime, especially not with a ship so large it wouldn't even notice if they rammed it. Necessary, though, to get good enough sensor readings to calculate a jump for another ship.

"Our computer is finalising now," Princess said. "Please don't be concerned by the delay. Our protocols are slightly different from yours. Everything's on schedule."

 _'Our computer' indeed_. Jason snorted to himself and set to work.

"Incoming!" That was Keyop, and there was significant worry in his voice.

"Details, G-4," said Mark calmly.

"Multiple mecha. Five minutes to intercept."

"Five minutes?"

"They're small." Keyop sounded thoroughly miserable. "Only just picked them up. Sorry."

"Keep me informed. G-2, can we do this?"

"No problem." Not a difficult solution at all, this. Nice well-defined jump-point. He could do calculations like these in his sleep.

That said, he was calculating for a bunch of giant tin cans, not the Phoenix.

"They can jump together, right?"

"I already told them they had to." Mark indicated Princess, still talking reassuringly into the radio. "They're not entirely happy about it. Sooner you get them some numbers the better."

Jason pointed at his own screen, even though Mark couldn't see it. "Done. Is there even any point refining them? Those things spend days in jump. Crudest jump-engines you ever saw."

"Flatter them. They're nervous as hell."

"I'll leave that to Princess." He continued to refine the solution. It was good practice for their own jump home, even if the lumbering behemoths off their port wingtip couldn't use it.

"They are ready to go, right?"

"Two minutes to jump-point," said Princess, confirming the numbers on his screen. She repeated it into the radio in Rigan. "Coordinates laid in. Good luck, Captain. Your Red Ranger escort will be waiting for you when you come out of jump."

On the screen, the giant ship began to shiver and glow. Very slowly. Nothing like the way the Phoenix erupted into flame. This was more of a tin can heated with a blowtorch glow, and not a very big blowtorch at that.

"One minute," said Princess.

"Problem," said Keyop. "Too slow. Last ship. No time."

"Steady, kid." Jason knew what that degree of frustrated, abbreviated speech meant. He squinted at the sensor output, and he had to agree.

"They'll be on top of us in three minutes."

Mark swore. "Princess, tell the Rigans to hold their course and go for jump no matter what we do."

 _Time to make a stand_. "G-1," he said, "understand this. If we go after those Spectrans, G-5 will die."

"We're not going after them. Is Tiny fit for jump?"

 _He'll have to be_. Medical call. His. "Yes," he said. "How long does it take those things to get into jump?" The wretched thing was cherry red now, but still nowhere near what it should look like to get into jump-space.

Nobody answered.

"Keyop, how long until the Spectrans are in firing range?" Mark asked.

Their sensor operator shook his head unhappily. "Ninety seconds?"

Mark didn't react, still watching the lumbering craft, still shadowing it. The front one was almost completely shimmering flame now, orange-red streamers spreading across most of their front screen. The second, third and fourth, neatly framed in the smaller screens above the main one by a sensor operator who really should have been scanning for Spectrans a little more efficiently, were various shades from bright orange to mildly warm red.

"Get out and push?" Keyop suggested. There was a nervous guilt in his voice which stopped Jason's sarcastic comment in its tracks. The kid felt bad enough already.

The first ship finally - finally - went to jump in a sea of flames, and Jason did some rapid calculations. "It'll be seventy seconds until the last ship hits jump-space."

"Spectrans here by then," said Keyop. "Have to fight them."

"We can't."

"We won't," said Mark, and that was his command voice, the one they all obeyed without question. "Princess, stand by on the weapons, don't fire unless I tell you to. Jase, you'll need to compute the jump without a straight approach. We'll hit the jump-point in sixty-five seconds from...now."

A counter appeared on his screen, blinking and running down in hundredths in the bottom left of his display.

"If you have a solution when we hit the jump-point, make the jump. If not, we'll have to turn and fight."

"Understood." Jason stared at his sensor data as the Phoenix swung round hard to the right, on a course which should look to the Spectran ships as if they were setting up an attack for as long as possible. Until they pulled round hard again and entered the jump-point at a steep angle, accelerating hard. Mark had put an outline of the course he planned to follow on Jason's screen. It couldn't be more unlike their usual jump-entries. They always came in straight. If at all possible, they came in inert, though just occasionally they were trying to outrun something and he had to deal with constant acceleration. He'd never even tried to solve something like this, with a whole bunch of extra terms in the equations.

It was as well that it was a steady, clearly defined jump-point. Without that, he wouldn't have stood a chance. As it was...maybe. He'd have to trust to his instincts, because none of his computerised safety checks were going to work. His screen was already filled with red warnings about instabilities and field variations and just about everything being wrong with their approach which possibly could be wrong. He was going to have fractions of a second to find the solution, and that was Mark at the controls. Not Tiny, who he'd have trusted to be able to hit that course on his screen to within an inch or two. Mark, flying the Phoenix? Maybe ten yards. That was a _lot_ in this situation.

Tiny was dying in the shielded safety of sickbay, alone and in agony. If they got this wrong, Tiny would live longer than the rest of them. Slightly.

Ten seconds. Five. Jason only vaguely heard Keyop yelp that the Spectrans were firing. He was just about aware that they were headed in a full speed dive for a Rigan transport which hadn't quite made it into jump yet. Flames filled the viewscreen, numbers filled his head, and he saw the solution he needed. No time for warnings or protocol - he hauled back on the lever which activated Fiery Phoenix and threw them into jump.

 _Not bad_ , he thought. _Not great, but not bad_. Stomach-churning, head-splitting, burning misery, but that was normal for jump. In sickbay, the door would have sealed, all electrical connections detached, the medical equipment switched to battery power. Isolated, at the exact minimum point of their jump-field, it shouldn't be too bad in there. Jason hoped.

.

They'd barely dropped out of jump when Mark turned to him. "Your call, G-2. What's next?"

"Get us down. G-3, get Chris on the radio and pipe him directly through to the sickbay comm."

He could feel the vibration in the deck as he waited for the sickbay door to unseal. Mark must have the main drive redlined.

He was about ready to drill his way in when there was a sucking sound of seals letting go and the door finally released. Jason swallowed, suddenly unsure of what he would find in there. What if...?

But the monitors were peeping away, and Tiny was visibly still breathing. Far too fast and shallow, and his face had gone from greenish to grey-white.

 _He's going into shock_. Not good. At all. Septic shock could and would kill him very efficiently. Jason tried to be reassured by the shuddering ship around him. Mark had them going flat out. They'd be home in no time, and now they were the right side of jump he could get real medical advice over the radio from the team doctor.

"Hang in there, Tiny," he said, hitting the button to put the intercom into full two way mode. "Chris?"

"Right here. Hit the yellow button on the monitor, and tell me what you've done so far."

"IV, left elbow, running wide open, warmed saline." It sounded pathetically little.

"That's good. Now, you need to get his blood pressure up. Get an IV in his other arm. Wide open saline, just like the first."

Even though nobody was watching, Jason felt himself flush. "I had to do a cutdown to get the first one in."

"With that blood pressure? I'm not surprised. Do the same again. I'm not giving marks for artistry."

It wasn't much better than his first attempt, but he didn't care. Needle in, check valve, withdraw needle, flush the line and connect. The blood pressure line on the monitor stopped dropping.

"Good. Now, in the drug cabinet behind you there's a fluid pack labelled E hyphen two three."

Jason flicked through the ordered rows of emergency drug packs, all labelled 'do not administer before jump under any circumstances.' That was reassuring, at least.

"Got it."

"Attach it to the secondary feed of the first IV."

Jason fumbled with the connections. "What is it?"

"Heavy duty antibiotics and painkillers. Done?"

 _Take your time_ , his instructor had always said. If he'd taken his time, maybe he wouldn't have cross-threaded the connector. Jason swore under his breath, yanked the wretched thing off and tried again. More slowly. Persuading stripped threads that they were still there, really. It leaked. After a few rounds of surgical tape, it leaked less.

"Done."

"Good. Has he been vomiting?"

There was a weak chuckle from the bed. "And how."

"Jason, top shelf of the cupboard. Ondansetron."

"Don't you dare move, Tiny," Jason warned, contemplating five million identical ampoules. All had incomprehensible names, and they had clearly been thrown about at some point. They needed a better storage system, one which could handle pulling eight g upside-down. "Chris, I can't find it."

"Plastic ampoule. Yellow label."

Miracle of miracles, everything else appeared to be glass. He could only see three plastic ones, and the first one he grabbed was right.

"Ondansetron. Standard dose four milligrams, it says."

"Give him eight."

One of those bodymass things, then. Tiny did make two of most people.

"Still feeling like crap?" he asked, setting up to add the drug to the line. He decided not to ask how much of the previous few minutes the other had been aware of.

"Pretty much, yeah." No weight behind his voice, eyes barely open, but he was conscious and he was coherent. That was a million times better than it might have been.

Jason had just finished injecting the drug when his bracelet pinged.

"Ready for re-entry when you are," Mark said.

"Go for it." He tossed everything loose into the nearest cupboard and slammed the door before pulling the jumpseat down and strapping himself in. Not a moment too soon. The Phoenix shook and juddered, almost as if a pilot unfamiliar with her quirks was slamming her into the atmosphere much too fast. Funny, that.

Jason leant back, rested his head against the bulkhead, and tried not to covet some of that anti-nausea drug he'd just given Tiny. No windows, no viewscreens, and a decidedly bumpy ride. Not good. It was just as well that the Owl had stopped vomiting - like he'd said, he'd been empty long before they'd got him in here. Jason might well have joined in otherwise.

No vomiting, but he was still groaning despite the painkillers, and Jason took advantage of a slightly smoother few seconds to put a hand on his shoulder.

"Hang in there. Nearly home."

"I feel grim."

"I know. Not long." Or it better hadn't be. Jason wasn't any too clear on precisely what happened when you diluted someone's bloodstream with saline to this extent. He just knew it was an absolute last resort when their blood pressure simply had to come up, and that urgent medical intervention was needed to sort the patient's electrolyte balance out afterwards. Transfusions. Dialysis, maybe. Nothing he could do.

"Jase," Tiny groaned, "too fast."

"Don't worry about it." Tiny always had been a lousy backseat driver.

"We hit the water vibrating like this, we'll break up." It ended in a gasp of pain, and Jason re-evaluated. Backseat piloting or not, Tiny was the expert.

He brought his bracelet up."G-1, G-5 advises this is too fast for water entry."

"Acknowledged." The communication was cut, and the juddering got even worse. Braking like crazy, he must be. What altitude were they at? They'd been in re-entry forever.

A shriek from the engines; a manoeuvre which felt as if they'd gone round the U-bend of a drain followed by a lurch in the opposite direction, and Jason put his head on his knees and fought with himself not to throw up. He won - just. Sitting up carefully, he became aware that the vibrations had gone, replaced with smooth quiet.

"I prefer your water entries," he said to Tiny.

No response. The big man's eyes were rolled up, his face completely slack. Jason went back to the radio.

"Chris?"

"He's gone to meet you in the hangar," another voice said. Chris's latest assistant, Jason thought. He'd had very few dealings with the man, beyond casual greetings.

"G-5's unconscious."

"That's not unexpected. Leave everything as it is. Medical staff will be with you as soon as you dock."

 _Not unexpected indeed. It means he's in massive trouble_. Jason didn't say it. It couldn't help, and in any case at that moment he felt the jarring clang of the clamps locking on the hull. They were in. Two minutes for the pumps to drain the cavern, a few seconds after that for Chris to make his way here.

He unstrapped, folded the seat out of the way, and opened the sickbay door. He could do nothing else. Tiny was unresponsive, his breathing was unsteady, and everything was pointing to conditions which were labelled You Can't Handle This in the paramedic's handbook. Peritonitis, electrolyte imbalance, septic shock...

Chris came through the door faster than Jason had ever seen him move before, towing a trolley and accompanied by another doctor as well as their implant expert.

"How long's he been out?"

"This time? Five minutes. About." It felt like half an hour, but four minutes was how long it took from water entry to cavern drain.

Chris didn't answer. He was already adding syringes to the IV pumps, prepared for him by the second doctor. Mike Bennett had some sort of electronic device under the back of Tiny's neck and was plugging it into a power supply on the trolley. Jason was just plain in the way. He stepped out into the corridor, backed up against the opposite wall, and slid down it to sit on the floor. They might need more information from him. Regardless, he couldn't leave Tiny here without finding something out.


	5. Chapter 5

The doctors continued to work for much longer than he'd expected. Calm, low voices, but Jason knew severe worry when he heard it. They were trying to crash recharge Tiny's implant, apparently. Made sense, though he hadn't known it was possible. And then there were raised voices.

"We need to intubate him."

"Ready."

Jason abruptly couldn't watch any more. It was Tiny on that bunk, being poked and prodded, having tubes stuck down his throat, being ventilated, and still getting worse. They should have been able to stabilise him by now. He should be upstairs being prepped for surgery. It was all going wrong, here and now, and there was nothing he could do. Tiny's blood was on his hands. Literally.

There was still some pressure in the water system. Enough for him to rinse the blood from his hands and get some composure back. Tiny was young, fit and strong, and he was in good hands. He'd be okay. He had to be.

He detransmuted, splashed cold water on his face, and headed back.

Sickbay was deserted. That had to be a good thing, he told himself. They'd stabilised him finally and they'd got him out of here.

.

"He's in surgery now," the doctor said in response to the question Jason hadn't asked. "Dr Allen's the top surgeon in the field. He'll be fine."

Jason didn't give him the satisfaction of any of the questions he wanted to ask. The Condor didn't ask people whether they were sure, or whether he'd done okay. It was Chris he wanted to talk to, not his minion, and Chris was with Tiny.

"Are we done here?" he asked instead.

"Unless you have anything medical you want to discuss, sure. We're done. Your debrief is in room one."

.

He opened the briefing room door, and the decision about whether or not to apologise for being late no longer mattered.

"Where's Mark?"

Anderson looked over his glasses at him. Princess and Keyop both looked up - they'd been studying the table in an intent way Jason had used himself, more than once. It sometimes meant nobody asked you any questions.

"With you," Keyop said. "Or in Medical."

"Nope." His blood ran cold. Not again, surely...

"Locate G-1, please," Anderson said into the tabletop communicator, face impassive.

"On the Phoenix, sir."

Anderson sighed and hit another button. "G-1, respond please."

Nothing.

Jason stopped half way to the table. "I'll go get him."

.

Mark sat in his own chair, still in birdstyle, the screens in front of him active and filled with data. "Get out," he said as the door slid fully open.

"Not a chance."

His commander did glance round at that - he'd have been expecting one of the logistics team, coming in to clean up. He glared. Jason ignored him and took Tiny's seat.

"Anderson's waiting for you in debrief."

"He can wait. Tiny...?"

"He's in surgery." He paused. "I'm sorry."

"For what? Doing your job?"

"Guilt tripping you isn't in my job description."

"I needed to know what the situation was." Mark grimaced. "I do care. It can't affect my command decisions. You know that."

"Yeah." He gestured at the screens. "What are you doing?"

"Looking for an alternative which would have been faster. Except leaving those ships unprotected."

"And?"

"There wasn't one. If there had been, we wouldn't have been sent in the first place. Five thousand lives against one? That's what we signed up for, Jase. Tiny knew the risks. There's no guarantee that 'at all costs' is going to involve something impressive and heroic."

"No." Not a nice thought, that. He'd always known that one day one of them might need to make the ultimate sacrifice. He'd expected it to be a choice, though. Going out in a blaze of glory. Not dying of some everyday condition because they'd made a stupid mistake.

"They're waiting for us in debrief," he said again. "And, for what it's worth, you made the calls you had to make and I'm bloody glad it wasn't me making them."

"Thanks. I think." Mark stood up, swayed, and grabbed at the back of his chair. The look he gave Jason was rueful.

"You'd think I'd have figured out I can't stand straight up by now."

"Nah. It'll take you another month. By which time you will be able to." He considered offering a shoulder, and didn't. "Heads-up? Anderson's going to throw a complete fit when he sees the data from that jump."

"You had a red light?"

Jason snorted. "I _only_ had red lights. I never saw a jump profile that bad. You didn't notice?"

"I was busy. Good jump, in that case. Damn good."

"Just tell Anderson that for me when the brown stuff hits the fan."

"I will do." He let go of the chair, and didn't wobble. "Good to go."

.

Anderson looked up from his computer as they entered the briefing room, eyebrows raised. "Ah, Commander. Thank you for joining us. I trust your report is ready?"

Mark's shoulders tensed, but he said nothing, taking his seat to Anderson's right. Jason sat alongside him. _Any news?_ he signed to Keyop.

The kid shook his head. Of course, the hangdog expression rather suggested there hadn't been any good news, and if there had been bad news...

"Tiny is still in surgery, and will be for some time," Anderson said. "There is nothing any of you can do to help. I suggest we concentrate on the debrief now. Though if you are unable to focus, we can delay it."

Keyop looked affronted. Princess, tears in her eyes, nodded.

"We're good, Chief," Mark said. "My apologies for the delay. Do you want a report on the outgoing flight, or shall I start with our arrival in the New Riga system?"

Anderson looked over his glasses. "I see you piloted the launch, Commander. Why was that?"

"Tiny told me he'd tweaked a stomach muscle. Plus I need the practice."

"He told you he was hurt and you didn't send him to medical for assessment?"

"Yes, he did, and no, I didn't." Mark took a deep breath and looked around the room. "Chief, I'm going to say this once. If it's not acceptable, you can have my resignation here and now."

 _What the...?_ Jason stared at him. They'd just got him back and he was threatening resignation?

"Go on," said Anderson calmly.

"Tiny's our medic, but even if he wasn't, his fitness to fly is his call. I won't go back to where we used to be. People not admitting to being hurt or sick because they're afraid of being grounded. I need to know."

"You're prepared to take a team out knowing they're not fully fit?"

Mark snorted. "Chief, _I'm_ not fully fit. Nowhere close. We've all fought hurt, sick, tired. We can make our own calls on this. You have to let us."

Anderson stared, and Jason got his own astonishment under control.

"He's right, Chief. You want me to tell him when I'm fighting a migraine, or would you rather he didn't know? Because I shoot so damn straight when I'm seeing three of everything."

"My coordination's wonderful at the wrong time of the month," said Princess. She managed a weak smile. "My temper, too." She looked at Keyop.

"I'm always perfect," their youngest member said. "Except when -"

And they all jumped as the communication console in front of Anderson pinged.

"Doctor?" said Anderson, and Jason's blood ran cold.

 _Please let him be okay. Please._

"He's still in surgery," said Chris Johnson's voice. "It's a nasty mess. But he is stable and he's improving. I'll let you know when I have more news."

Stable. Improving.

Jason hadn't realised his head was in his hands until he felt Mark's hand on his shoulder.

"You okay?"

"I will be." _More important,_ he _will be._ Jason raised his head and looked Anderson in the eye. "So, are we going to argue about whether Mark should or shouldn't be told if Keyop has a twisted eyebrow, or shall we get on with this debrief? I have some lovely jump-stats to discuss with you."

Anderson frowned, pressed buttons on the screen in front of him...and blanched. And Jason sat forward.

"We discovered that we don't need to go into jump inert any more. Equations four and seven are solvable, even with the logarithmic terms non-constant. I -"

And Anderson held up his hands. "We will hold this meeting at another time. With the jump-specialists present. Dismissed. On the understanding that you stay away from Medical until Dr Johnson informs you that Tiny is fit for visitors."

.

"Thank you," said Mark as they walked back to the ready room. "I owe you one."

"For backing you up on the medical thing? You were right."

"For getting us out of that meeting. Temporarily, at least."

"It'll take the specialists at least a day to figure out my solution to those equations. Maybe longer."

"And then I'll have to sit through five hours of you and Sheridan talking nine dimensions at one another." Mark sighed. "I hope Tiny needs visitors. Really, really needs them."

"By this time tomorrow? He'll need them." For the first time, he felt sure it was true. Tiny would be sore, and unhappy, and probably full of drainage tubes. Certainly full of guilt and remorse. But he'd be here, and that was all that mattered.


End file.
